Campaign News for 3/22/2018:

Campaign News for 3/22/2018:

The Contest of the Apprentices (and Aftermath)

On the final day of the Festival of the Sybarites, after Mordrovo’s humiliating performance, and Adrianna’s tour-de-force, come the other apprentices. Here is a taste of the spectacle.

Spaldiv, sickly and pallid, leering through teeth green with grave moss, walks onto the field with majestic airs. In a voice that echoes with spectral tones, he calls the dead from the depths of the earth. And lo! They claw their way from below. (“The bastard has seeded the field in advance with his filthy cadavers!” Adrianna whispers under her breath.) Zombies climb, almost without number, out of holes in the torn earth. The stench is overwhelming and cries of fear and retching can be heard among the crowd. The zombies bear a throne of bone on their shoulders and pull behind them huge nets full of bones. They set to assembling, through interlocking joints and hinges, balls and sockets, a skeletal behemoth of bone, a many-armed monstrosity, with tusks and horns, dizzying and sickening to look at. Spaldiv sits in the throne which is set on the back of this behemoth. The thing rises on its legs rearing, and there is spectral roar, like a hundred dead lions. The crowd swoons in terror, as the monstrosity kneels before the Chatelaine. Through a handkerchief held to her face she says, “Spaldiv, the stench is overwhelming, and the field is utterly torn. Your sense of decorum is, as usual, lacking. This is why you will never advance beyond your station, for all your efforts.”

Bathsheba, the medium, is next. She stumbles out onto the field, in her peasant’s dress, looking like an absolutely terrified charwoman. The rumor is that Zashtassa, infamous ancient Ghinorian sorceress, has not manifested in quite some time. After some a halting speech, and nothing more impressive than gust of wind™, she is about to give up in shame, when she suddenly begins levitating. Head thrown back, eyes rolling, she prophesies as lightning flashes in a suddenly cloudy sky. “Glutted on your feasts and debauchery, today you play at magic, like children at dress-up. As you while away the hours, a potentate of nightmares with ambitions unknowable sends his calling card. Soon you will be tested sorely, and you may fall, as did great Ghinor at the height of her powers, when the Archivists came with their strange siege weapons! Oh, Ghinor, with her splendid walls and towers…” At this the Chatelaine interrupts with a yawn and the wave of her hand, “This really is too much. Next.”

Almurek then takes the stage, sauntering, in fine if unduly revealing apparel, a long white leather whip curled about his shoulder. “Today you witness feats undreamt of, as I call from the howling wilderness of this and other worlds, mighty beasts with whom I will struggle in mortal combat for your pleasure and amazement. Witness now, the blood howls of the black wolves, their bellies full of man flesh…” In a flash a pack of huge black wolves appear, ringing him, stalking, as he bests them, one after another, displaying his bulging biceps as he wrestles them to submission, and squeezes their heads between his mighty thews. After the wolves come a pair of great pumas, and then on to more exotic fare, as he bests first the long sinuous white swine, who rear up on their hind legs like parodies of men; then a feathered serpent, that flys through the air, with golden fangs, dripping with venom, that he rides through the air as it coils about him; next hideous insects, that bring with them a moving living darkness, that he dispels with his now glowing whip, to reveal their hideus, scorpion like tails and clutching mandibles; and finally, the great tongue beasts, pure muscle, exposed, with a terrible violence, that he rides like bucking broncos, until them submit through sheer exhaustion. Needless to say, the crowd is well pleased by this performance.

Next is Mercurio, with his top hat, mysterious air, and laughing eyes. He blackens the sky, and in the pitch darkness, pulls jellyfish from his mouth like handkerchiefs, one after another. They illuminate an underwater scene in a phantasmagoria of light. And as the scene comes into view, everyone feels about the skin a cool wetness and pressure, and breathing feels somehow like drinking. From this light, he fashions one luminous set piece after another, telling the story in pleasing fashion of a nymph who has lost her bauble, a great pearl that has fallen into a great canyon in the ocean. She disobeys her father to enter that strange world of darkness. And when the tale is over, Mercurio asks the audience to open their mouths and spit into their hands—and there in each and every hand is a glass pearl.

Finally comes Albinus with his conical blue cap, white bead, and bushy eyebrows. And at his side strides, Elsamora, whom the scullery maids and stable boys call Black Jack, four feet tall, exquisitely beautiful, with dead eyes, and wings of tattered black gossamer. He carries on his shoulders a pole, from the ends of which dangle fine and elaborate bird cages, in which tiny and miserable forms sit dejected. Albinus raises a wand of black glass like a conductor, and when it points at one of the cages, the inhabitants of the cages cry out in agony. And so the show begins. Enchantments of Faeryland flow from the captives at his imperious commands, toadstools growing to palaces, and snowstorms of cherry blossoms. One fairy plays a violin, inducing an incredible sadness in the watching crowds, who weep and sob, but then another plays a harp, and mischevious mirth spreads, with chuckles, and then giggles, and then raucous laughter. Once the tunes have come to an end, Elsamora opens the way to Faeryland itself, and through the portal you see a twilit meadow of terrible, still beauty and perfection that fills you with dread. And then through the portal comes a strange thing, a stallion, with twisted horn, red eyes, and a shimmering coat. Elasmora mounts the beast riding it faster and faster around the ring, until it’s hooves of white silver throw sparks, and pink fire streams from its nostril, only to bring it to a sudden halt before the Chatelaine, before whom it prostrates itself. “My Chatelaine,” Elsamora says, in a mellifluous voice, “Faeryland serves you ever, willing and unwilling alike.”

The contest having come to its end, the Chatelaine rises. “My apprentices have now performed, an unusually pleasing contest,” at this her gaze falls on Adriana, “which has amazed the good citizens of Rastingdrung. Remember, all you saw today is the work of my lesser servants, whose power is mine. As always, I judge the contests, some will rise, and others will fall. So it always it, and so it will be this time as well. The apprentices are, in order:

1. Albinus
2. Adrianna
3. Mercurio
4. Almurek
5. Spaldiv
6. Mordrovo
7. Bathsheba

At this pronouncement, you see Almurek look darkly at you, his face flushed an ugly red. Mordrovo is beyond himself with glee, having risen for the first time above seventh place.

“Adrianna, I would speak with you now in private conclave.” Adrianna curtsies and follows the Chatelaine. Soon a servant comes for the party, and bids them to come speak to the Chatelaine. This is where tonights session begins, in her private chambers.

Eric Boyd Aleksandr Revzin Chris P. Shemek hiTankolel Joshua Blackketter Evlyn M Anthony Huso